Examining the odd case of the Bengals benching Tyler Boyd

In Cincinnati, rookies play no matter what. The team invested an asset and the front office will get value out of that asset, for better or worse.

Unless your name is Tyler Boyd, apparently.

Lost in the hoopla of the Cincinnati Bengals firing offensive coordinator Ken Zampese and promoting quarterbacks coach Bill Lazor to the position is the fact the team benched Boyd on Thursday night against the Houston Texans.

Lewis himself offered the following when asked about Boyd, via the postgame transcripts from Bengals.com: “I can only suit up so many players.”

Well alrighty then.

Clearly, something is amiss. Lewis wasn’t even willing to make up something about an injury when talking about Boyd’s benching.

From a schematic standpoint, of course, little makes sense about Cincinnati’s approach to wideout right now. A.J. Green, John Ross, Cody Core and Alex Erickson were active against the Texans. Green went ignored late in the game, Ross received only one touch, Erickson looked good and Core was silent.

Related

If the reasoning is a numbers game, it is downright odd for a team so intent on squeezing the most out of draft picks and contracts to simply refuse to find a way to scheme Boyd, a second-round pick, into the attack. Instead, they threw up the white flag and kept him inactive.

Odd.

Boyd didn’t make much of an impact last year but it is hard to think the Bengals have seen enough. Time won’t necessarily reveal what happened here, but it will reveal whether Lazor taking control gets Boyd back on the field and involved regardless of who else happens to be active on a weekly basis.